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Comment Re:Language? (Score 5, Informative) 162

by PimpBot (#45560595) Attached to: Snowden Document Says Dutch Secret Service Hacks Internet Forums

The Dutch normally speak Dutch, because, well, it's their native tongue. Dutch itself is pretty close to German, but neither are world-popular language. As such, most people in the Netherlands speak English as well, because they're a hub of business. Publishing this in English ensures it's widely readable to the rest of the world.

Submission + - Code.org Disincentivizes Teaching CS to Boys

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: As supporters of Mark Zuckerberg's FWD.us PAC, leaders of the nation's tech giants are lobbying for an increase in the number of H-1B visas to "meet our workforce needs." And as supporters of Code.org, many of the same leaders, their companies, and the politicians receiving FWD.us support have declared a Computer Science education crisis in the U.S., saying there simply aren't enough kids studying CS to fill a projected 1,000,000 CS job shortfall by 2020 (assuming the job vacancies are still there after FWD.us is done). But Code.org is sending the message that boys aren't the answer to this CS crisis with its learn-to-code program which calls for educators who teach Code.org classes where fewer than 40% of the students are female to receive 25% less money from the organization. "When 10 or more students complete the course," explains Code.org, "you will receive a $750 DonorsChoose.org gift code. If 40% or more of your participating students are female, you'll receive an additional $250, for a total gift of $1,000 in DonorsChoose.org funding!" (CNET reports that Slashdot owner Dice supports efforts like Code.org and Donors Choose). The $1+ million Code.org-DonorsChoose partnership appears to draw inspiration from a $5 million Google-DoonorsChoose partnership which can completely disqualify schools from its AP STEM funding (including CS) if participation by female students is deemed insufficient. So, since the NY Times just reported that women account for only about 25% of all employees at Code.org supporters Apple, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft, shouldn't their CEOs cut salaries at their own companies by 25% until 40% of their programmers are women?
Java

Submission + - Java LINQ (github.com) 3

Submitted by
nicholas22
nicholas22 writes: "A Java library providing LINQ (Language INtegrated Query) has been developed, using a Scala-style programming library called lombok-pg, that supports features not found in standard JDK libraries, such as extension methods, yield coroutines and functions.

Examples (valid Java):
String[] names = new String[] { "james", "john", "john", "eddie" }.where(startsWith("j")).distinct();
char[] alphabet = new Character('A').to(new Character('Z')).unbox();

This Java code would take approximately 4x the number of lines of code."

Comment Re:WTF (Score 1) 317

by PimpBot (#37016292) Attached to: 45,000 Verizon Workers On Strike Over New Contract

Elementary, my dear Watson:

Rob Malda = R.M. = Rupert Murdoch

For years, News Corp has been propping up the Google, Linux, and HURD conspiracy through the awesome power of the Slashdot media empire. Verizon's use of red in their marketing is a signal to all the socialist bourgeois to take up arms!

Buy Windows 7 today, and join the resistance!
Android

Submission + - Android Devices Are Hives of License Violations (linuxplanet.com)

Submitted by inkscapee
inkscapee writes: Android developers are paying little attention to Free/Open Source software licenses and have a 71% violation rate. Come on folks, FOSS licenses are easy to comply with, certainly easier than proprietary software licenses, and less punitive. But it seems even the tiny hoops that FOSS requires are too much for devs eager to cash in.
Sci-Fi

BBC To Dispose of Douglas Adams Website 189

Posted by Soulskill from the so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The BBC has announced their intention to dispose of the H2G2 website, originally founded by Douglas Adams. This comes as part of an initiative by the BBC to cut their online spending by 25%. 'BBC Online will be reorganised into five portfolios of "products." All parts of BBC Online have to fit with these. Over the past year all areas of the site have been reviewed to see where, and if, they fit. Sadly ... H2G2 does not fit in the new shape of BBC Online. However, H2G2 is unusual. It is a pre-existing community that the BBC brought into its fold, not a community that the BBC set up from scratch. So rather than closing it, we've decided to explore another option. This process has been referred to elsewhere as the "disposal" of H2G2. I'll admit this is not a great choice of words, but what is means is that we'll be looking for proposals from others to take on the running of H2G2.' One option under discussion is a community buyout."
Microsoft

Open Source More Expensive Says MS Report 465

Posted by CmdrTaco from the yeah-that'll-fly dept.
doperative writes "Much conventional wisdom about programs written by volunteers is wrong. The authors took money for research from Microsoft, long the archenemy of the open-source movement — although they assure readers that the funds came with no strings attached. Free programs are not always cheaper. To be sure, the upfront cost of proprietary software is higher (although open-source programs are not always free). But companies that use such programs spend more on such things as learning to use them and making them work with other software"
Bug

Firefox 4, A Huge Pile of Bugs 481

Posted by CmdrTaco from the software-is-hard dept.
surveyork writes "Firefox 4.0 beta 9 (AKA 'a huge pile of awesome') was released on January 14, 2011. Firefox 4's release schedule includes a beta 10 and a release candidate before the final launch in late February. However, one wonders if this schedule won't slip again, since there are still more than 100 'hardblocker' bugs, more than 60 bugs affecting Panorama alone and 10 bugs affecting the just-introduced Tabs-on-Titlebar. Some long-standing bugs won't be fixed in time for Firefox 4 final either (example, example). Many startup bugs are currently pending, although Firefox 4 starts much faster than Firefox 3.6. As a side note, it's unlikely that Firefox 4 final will pass the Acid3 test, despite this being a very popular demand amongst Firefox enthusiasts. Perhaps we'll have to wait until Firefox 4.1 to have this 'huge pile of bugs' (mostly) fixed."
Australia

Australia Mandates Microsoft's Office Open XML 317

Posted by timothy from the not-to-be-confused-with dept.
littlekorea writes "The Australian Government has released a common operating environment desktop policy that — among security controls aimed at reducing the potential for leaks of Government data — mandates the ECMA-376 version of Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) standard and productivity suites that can 'read and write' the .docx format, effectively locking the country's public servants into using Microsoft Office. The policy [PDF] also appears to limit desktop operating systems to large, off-the-shelf commercial offerings at the expense of smaller distributions."
Java

Tomcat 7 Finalized 103

Posted by timothy from the not-yet-spayed dept.
alphadogg writes "The volunteer developers behind Apache Tomcat have released version 7.0.6 of the open-source Java servlet container. 'This is the first stable release of the Tomcat 7 branch,' developer Mark Thomas wrote in an e-mail announcing the release on various Tomcat developer mailing lists. While not a full application server, Tomcat implements the functionality described in the Java Enterprise Edition Web profile specifications. Most notably, it supports version 3.0 of the Servlet API (application programming interface) and version 2.2 of JavaServer Pages, both part of the recently ratified JEE 6. A servlet container manages Java-based applications that can be accessed from a Web browser. One big area of improvement is in configuration management for Web applications. Previous versions required all Web app configuration changes to be entered in a central file called web.xml, a process that led to unwieldy web.xml files as well as security risks."
Sci-Fi

Ridley Scott Abandons Alien Prequel 170

Posted by timothy from the he-must-be-infested dept.
An anonymous reader writes "With Ridley Scott and 20th Century Fox announcing that the much-vaunted 3D Alien prequel has now mutated into an original SF film project called Prometheus, starring Noomi Rapace, the author of this article recalls his 2007 interview with the late Dan O'Bannon, who presumably is happy about the news, wherever he is. Asked what he'd like to see happen to the xenomorph franchise, the Alien co-creator said: 'I'd like to see it stop. A horror movie's a fragile thing, and once you've gotten past the original, it isn't scary anymore. So you do a bunch of sequels to a horror movie, all they do is drain any remaining impact out of the original...it's not as effective as it would have been if you had just left it alone.'"

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